Bio: Trepton, Fred (Awaiting Court Hearing – 20 Feb 1919)

Contact: Ann Stevens
Email: ann@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Trepton, Schoengarth

----Source: Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 2/20/1919

Trepton, Fred (Awaiting Court Hearing – 20 Feb 1919)

Fred Trepton is in jail awaiting a hearing on the charge of obtaining money under false pretenses. He was given a preliminary hearing on Monday before Judge Schoengarth and the hearing was postponed until next week.

It seems that Trepton and two or three other solicitors had been working in this end of the county for a couple of days, having completed their operations around Thorp and Stanley some months ago. Their plan is to sell memberships in the Consumers Service and Supply Co., membership to cost $60 and payable in most anything of value. One man traded a young bull for a membership. The solicitors maintain that members in the service and supply company will be enabled to buy most anything they want at even lower prices than the mail order houses. They ask their members to make their selections of purchases from Sears, Roebuck, Montgomery Ward or any other large mail order catalogue and send the order to them. They agree to supply the purchase at less than the catalogue prices, but the experience of those bitten in the north end of the county is that a commission was charged them and which brought the purchase price even higher than that which could have been secured of the home merchant.

Fred Trepton hooked quite a number in this vicinity in the two days they were at work, men who should know better, too. But the solicitors have smooth tongues and plausible stories coupled with a bewildering array of contracts, receipts and notes (heavy on the notes) and they were enabled to put across their plan in a number of instances. The Consumers Service and Supply Co. may be a reliable institution, but Judge Schoengarth is going to find out before he lets Trepton go.